The Highest of Priests
by Pretty Desdemona
Summary: "What, you might ask, makes me the one who can provide humanity with the cleansing I speak of? Me? A mere man, a mortal of flesh and blood and bone and sinew? Am I a god? No. But, to put it simply, I am above mortality. All of it. I am above love and fear and death. And because of that, I am the only one worthy. I am pure."
1. Inferno

THE HIGHEST OF PRIESTS

ONE.

INFERNO

"_Through me you enter into the city of woes,_  
_Through me you enter into eternal pain,_  
_Through me you enter the population of loss._

_Abandon all hope, you who enter here._"

* * *

_July 28__th__, 1954._

Crucio.

Do you know what that word _means_?

It means fucking pain, that's what it means. It means fear and power and ultimate supremacy. Once you have the capability of wielding that power, my friend, you can control _anyone_. Because what do humans fear most of all? Pain and death. It is as simple as that.

But here is the unfortunate reality of that particular spell: It was created by someone. The torture curse is _manmade_.

Now, think about that for a moment.

Some sadistic, inhuman bastard woke up one morning and decided that what the world needed was a curse that could cause another human being unimaginable pain, agony worse than they had ever experienced. What does that tell you about humanity? It tells you that it is sick, that it is horrific, that it needs cleansing. That there are certain members of our great global community who do not deserve life. Who deserve to be wiped out.

What an exquisite paradox that makes, don't you think? That spell would not be needed if no one had ever created it, really. But since it _was _created, it must be utilized. I will not attempt to deny that, while I think the kind of vermin capable of creating it are repulsive, I have great respect for this spell. I am not ashamed to admit that I have and intend to continue showing my fervent respect through its utilization.

And what, you might ask, makes me the one who can provide humanity with the cleansing I speak of? Me? A mere man, a mortal of flesh and blood and bone and sinew? Am I a god?

No. But, to put it simply, I am above mortality. All of it. I am above love and fear and death. And because of that, I'm the only one worthy. Everyday humanity proves that to me. Those who scrabble in the dirt for their validation, for love and money and power. They are unfit.

I know that there are those who would say that I am inhuman, as if this is a deficit, those that would say that I am cruel, immoral, wicked. In fact, I have met many who hold these self righteous opinions of my moral views. But I and those who are loyal to me know that I am pure, mind, body and soul, and that is all I need. I am not one to pander to the wills and constrictions of society, regulated and controlled by lesser minds. I fight for what I believe in, and I always will.

This is my internal dialogue on this crisp July morning, is what runs through my mind as I walk through the streets of this decrepit city. Melbourne.

I journeyed to this country in order to study old magic, magic that the wizards of influence in this time are trying desperately to stamp out. Why? Because they believe it to be wicked. And I am not one to shun wickedness if I have something to gain. After all, power draws power.

It has taken me many years to reach this place. Seven, in fact. It does not seem long to me since I had left Hogwarts and Bourgin and Bourkes, but all at once I feel as if I am changed. I feel my own power growing as tangibly as my body, blooming within me like a great, monolithic structure that rises out of the decrepit wasteland of our world, ever budding towards the heavens beautiful and stronger than the foundations of the earth.

The study of these old magics, those that I had spent almost a decade chasing across the globe, led me to the deepest heart of this country, where nothing grows and the earth lays bare under the sun. The land is red and gold under the bluest sky. I cannot deny that I was enraptured by it. The people who practice this old magic I speak of do not live conventionally, they live off the earth. They do not call themselves witches or wizards, they call themselves elders and they do not hide their capabilities from the Muggles that surround them, instead they lead them, guide them and those Muggles accept their superiority and their wisdom without argument. This is a philosophy that I can sympathise with.

It was with these elders that I have studied for the last two months but, alas, one must return to civilisation on occasion, if only to hear of the goings on in the world. I begin to feel irritated, being so cut off from the wizarding world. It rankles me eventually, and I cannot get comfortable until I hold a newspaper in my hand again. This behaviour, though bothersome, is understandable. After all, what is the saying prevalent in this time? Know thy enemy.

I never do take my eyes off the so called 'light' side for very long.

And so I find myself here in a city that stinks, where everyone, wizards and muggles alike strive to conform, strangled by the restrictions of their own obsessions with propriety, never striving to be different, to rise above, to change the course of history. I am sickened by it. Sickened by the people and sickened by the city. I never did like cities and Melbourne is not a pretty city.

Though, at some hours, it can provide some pretty entertainment.

I do not like being out amongst the muggles, though it is a cumbersome necessity as the train station is three or four blocks from the only area in this awful place that I am truly familiar with. And so my feet lead me to the Wizarding district of Melbourne, a street, eerily like Diagon Alley, called Little Collins Street. The muggles see it only as a stretch of blank wall where the buildings on either side join. They are none the wiser about the magical populace that resides within.

I head, of course, to the only pub on the street that I can tolerate because the music pleases me and the barmaids are pretty. This pub is called The Guernica. It is just dark enough to be fashionable, and clean enough not to be considered repulsive. It also sports a certain level of sophistication that I find agreeable.

When I enter and sit down at the bar on one of the red velvet upholstered stools, the barmaid smiles at me in a way that I am sure she assumes is alluring, I do not smile back.

"What'll it be, Tom?" she asks me in that awful Australian drawl. I am entirely unsurprised that she remembers my face. I do, after all, have a truly remarkable face.

"Firewhisky." I say shortly, giving the same answer I had when I was last here over two months previously. I have a sneaking suspicious that she does this deliberately in an attempt to be playful. If only she knew exactly who she was trying to play with. I am not the friendliest child in the schoolyard.

I take my drink when she set it down on the bar top and sip it casually. I have never understood the need to skull whisky as other wizards do. I would much prefer to savour the taste, to feel it burn my throat and stomach slowly.

As I sit, beginning to lose myself again in the complexity of my own thoughts, I notice a woman coming out of the water closet and surprisingly, she steals my attention. The reason this is surprising is because my attention is not so often stolen by women.

She looks a little scared, her eyes sweeping over the environment as if she has never seen it before and I find myself smiling at her confusion, looking as she does like a little lost animal. Her robes, I realise, are not the conventional type seen in most cities these days, the cut of the collar is lower, and they cling to her figure more prominently. I wonder if she is a prostitute. Not out of any desire to hire her if she was, just with a detached sort of curiosity.

The woman moves over to the bar and sits down several seats away from me. I see her glance in my direction but she averts her eyes quickly, seeming determined to stare straight ahead.

The barmaid approaches her, "Can I help you, miss?"

"Uh… a… a butterbeer, thanks." she responds, her voice quavering.

The barmaid and I both raise our eye brows and I almost rub my hands together in anticipation. Most ladies are not often brave enough to taste butterbeer, and if they are they are usual far rougher than many men. Butterbeer does have an almost cruelly high alcohol content after all. The barmaid shuffles off and returns moments later with a bottle which he sets down in front of her. The woman picks it up and studies it, frowning.

"Is there a problem, miss?" asks the barmaid, attempting to hide a smirk.

"No… I… It looks different." the woman answers vaguely but does not offer any other explanation for why it should be anything other than what she sees before her. She pulls out the cork and takes a tentative sip. Her eyes immediately begin to water as she swallows and coughs. "This is alcoholic!" she splutters in indignation.

The barmaid chuckles, "What did you bloody expect it to be?"

The woman looks at it for a moment before she shrugs and says indifferently, "Fuck it." and she takes another swig. The barmaid looks scandalized at her choice of words but I cannot help but laugh at this strange, new character that has entered the pub where I thought to find nothing but mediocrity.

When I laugh, she looks at me and smiles shyly. I do not smile back but I can see she assumes that I do as I am still laughing. This is a failing on my part. Smiles invite people in. I have no interest in that. I merely wish to observe.

"Hi." she says; so informal, so rough, as if we have been friends for years.

"Good evening." I respond pointedly, with no hint of warmth in my tone.

She looks around for a moment as if surveying the situation before she picks up her bottle and stands, moving to sit closer to me. I am beginning to feel a little put off by this woman, her forwardness is most disconcerting. I am a casual observer; I do not like to interact with people. Especially not one so over eager.

She leans closer to me, "I, uh, know this might sound a bit weird, but could you possibly tell me what year it is?" she asks, her voice low.

"Excuse me?" I am thrown by this question and begin to wonder if this woman might not be entirely sane. Her manner of speech is odd.

"What year is it?" she repeats slowly, as if _I _might be the stupid one.

"It is 1954." I reply, leaning away from her. I don't like her being so close.

"Oh, good." she says like she's pleased with herself. "1954… _54_…" she taps her chin in thought. "So we've already got Elvis; we've had Ernest Hemingway and Cole Porter but not the Beatles or the Vietnam War… Has Kennedy been shot yet? I can't remember…"

She's looking at me expectantly. "I'm sorry, but I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"I guess not then." she takes another swig from the bottle of butterbeer and turns herself on her stool so that she can face away from the bar and look at its inhabitants. She seems content to sit in companionable silence for a time. Though of course this is decidedly one sided as I am by no means feeling companionable with this obscure person.

"You're British." she points out after a few moments and it is not a question.

Nevertheless I respond, "I am."

"Where are you from?" she asks conversationally.

"London." I reply tightly.

"Did you go to Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

"Me too."

"Fascinating."

She looks at me then, obviously realising that I have no interest in continuing any kind of conversation.

"Alright, I get the message." she says, chuckling, "But before I leave you to your drink, you wouldn't happen to know of any nice places to stay around here would you?"

"There is an establishment down the street, but its prices might be rather out of your range I think." I eye her robes, which do not look in the slightest bit expensive or fashionable, no matter how pleasing they might be to the eye.

"That's no problem." she says brightly and hops off her stool. She turns and gestures to the barmaid. "How much do I owe you?"

"Two knuts." she replies.

From the folds of her cloak, the woman pulls a rather dilapidated beaded bag and plunges her arm into it nonchalantly. My eyes widen. An undetectable extension charm. This is rather advanced magic. She produces a heavy looking pouch and sets it on the bar top.

"I think I've got some Knuts in here… Just a second."

My jaw almost drops as I watch her paw through what looks like over fifty galleons until eventually she withdraws two little bronze coins and hands them to the equally flabbergasted barmaid. My interest is certainly piqued. This young witch is not only bordering on incontinently rich but also practices magic not even taught in traditional wizarding schools. And she cannot possibly be that far past Hogwarts age. She looks physically to be about eighteen or nineteen, but there is a certain maturity in her eyes that speak of an age far greater.

The pouch of gold disappears off the bar top and, without a backward glance, the woman leaves the pub.

It is only when she leaves that I realise I want to know this witch. It might be out of boredom, or some morbid curiosity. But I either way, I want to know her.

For once, I drink the rest of my firewhisky in one rather graceless gulp and slap four Knuts in front of the barmaid before dashing out of the pub after the strange woman. I look left and right before I spot her curly dark brown hair bobbing along amongst the crowd a way up the street.

Without concern, I push through the pedestrians until I can reach out and tap her arm. She turns to look at me, surprise crossing her face at my sudden reappearance.

"I thought that perhaps you might like an escort." I say smoothly, adopting the charm that I know has worked on so many other witches.

She raises an eye brow and smirks, "Why? Because you think I'm rich? No thanks." and she turns away, just like that, as if what she has just done is not incredibly rude.

But I am not so easily cast aside, "I'm sorry but I really must insist." I smile and she stops again, "Besides, you are going the wrong direction. The establishment I spoke of is that way." I point behind myself, down the street. She looks over my shoulder and then gives me a shrewd look.

"Oh, fine then." she exclaims huffily.

I grin and offer her my arm which she looks at suspiciously before looping her own through it.

"I am Tom, by the way." I tell her.

"Hermione." she answers, stubbornly not letting go of her blatant tone.

"And do you have purity on your side, Hermione?" I ask instinctually.

She gives me a long, long look then. It is shrewd, calculating and I can tell that my question has insulted her. She may even like me a little less for asking it. My eyes narrow as she looks at me; I know what kinds of people are insulted by questions like that, mudbloods and bloodtraitors.

"Yes." she says through gritted teeth glaring at me. "You know, I think I can manage on my own from here, thanks." her voice is cold. She withdraws her arm from mine swiftly and begins to walk ahead of me, but I reach out a hand to stop her again.

"Permit me to perhaps call on you a little later, Miss…?"

I know exactly what I am doing, trying to manipulate her into telling me her last name so that I can know her family of origin to confirm her apparent blood purity. And I can tell that she knows as well when her eyes narrow even further before she gives me a slow, slightly daunting smile. "Malfoy. I am Hermione Malfoy."

She holds out her hand to me as my eyes widen and I take it. "I was not aware that Abraxus had a daughter."

"Yes, well my father prefers his son." she says, somewhat bitterly. "Do you know the Malfoy's? I mean… my family?"

"Quite well." I respond giving her a pointed look.

I cannot help but feel suspicious. I could not tell you why but there is something about this woman that does not feel entirely honest, not primarily the fact that she does not have the trademark Malfoy blonde hair…

She might be cunning and secretive, and doing a marvellous job of creating an air of tempting mystery about herself, but I know for a fact that she is not a Malfoy.

I take her arm again and begin to walk further down the street. Her lie has sealed her fate. Whether she wants to or not, I _will _escort her the entire way now.

"Well, miss Malfoy, how long have you been here in this beautiful city?" I ask, hoping that I can persuade her to open up a little more. Even if it is just with more untruths. The more she lies, the more she reveals how important her identity really is to her.

"Um… just over a year." she replies, but I can tell again that there is something not quite right about her tone and I wonder why she might be being dishonest with me about something so simple, so pedestrian.

"And in that year you have not yet found a place to stay?" I ask smoothly.

"No, I was staying… somewhere else." she says easily, but I can see that she evidently does not wish to pursue the subject so I let it drop and we walk in silence. Outwardly, I appear to look straight ahead, taking in the environment in which we walk, but really I am covertly watching _her_. There is something about her body language that says she is not comfortable on this street, and the way she looks around herself intently, with an air of fascination, almost makes it seem like she has never seen this place before. Did she perhaps simply apparate directly into the Guernica water closet from somewhere else?

Melbourne bores me. And so, it is for this reason, and the fact that I wish my curiosity to be quenched with information, that I say what I say next, "Would you care to dine with me tonight?"

Miss Malfoy looks taken aback and then, again, suspicious. "Why?" she asks slowly.

I shrug, "Because I would like the pleasure of your company."

She laughs, though reluctantly, "I get the feeling that if I say no, you'll show up anyway."

I smile winningly, she is already enraptured, I can tell. "Quite probably."

"Alright, fine. I suppose I need a friend now…" she looks a little sad for a moment and, as is my traditional response to such fickle shows of emotion, I am slightly repulsed. But I am also, increasingly, intrigued.

Why does this woman speak as if she is from a different time? Why does she claim to be a Malfoy when that is clearly not the case? How did she come to be in the Guernica water closet when she has clearly never set eyes on the city that lies outside the pub?

The only explanation is that Hermione Malfoy is lying to me. And I, Tom Riddle, do not like _lies_.

* * *

That night, I go back, just as I said I would. When I meet Miss Malfoy in the lobby of the Lieu de Brûler, I am surprised to see that she wears the same robes I had already seen her in earlier that day. This perplexes me.

"I assume your things have not yet arrived, Miss Malfoy." I say to her once the customary greetings have been imparted.

She looks a little offended before she chuckles, "Yeah, something like that. So where are we going then?"

"Is there anything that would tempt the lady's pallet?"

She snorts gracelessly and crosses her arms, "I could really go some fish and chips but I'm thinking that might be a little out of reach in a time like this." I can see she notices my perplexed look but waves me down dismissively, "Whatever. You choose."

"Very well." I am beginning to become increasingly frustrated by her tone. Why must she continue to be so relentlessly rude and unpleasant? I have been nothing but gracious and charming and yet, she keeps the boundary up. Yet again, I almost wish I could show her who she was playing with. Perhaps then she would not be so mouthy. Not when she discovers the things that I have done in my life. I'm sure that relentless sarcastic smile would slip when I told her of the murders I have committed and the people I have tortured.

It is this line of thought that leads me to believe that perhaps a more direct approach might be more appropriate and I keep this in mind as we leave the hotel and walk to the restaurant of my choice. I hold it close to my chest as an emergency tactic to play, should she prove too hard to crack.

The conversation that flows forth as we eat is stunted. Though not visibly so. On the outside, we would appear to be two people getting to know one another, laughing and talking easily.

But really, it was a dance of dishonesty. She gave no true answers to my questions and I gave no true answers to hers. Both of us knew it and yet the dance continued, almost like a game of cards. I would bluff about my hand while she upped the bet and visa versa. But there seemed to be no hope that either one of us would fold.

By the end of the meal I am almost maddeningly frustrated. This is out of character for me. I want to take hold of Hermione Malfoy's shoulders and shake her until the truth comes tumbling out. Most alarmingly, there is also an instinct, taking hold of me that is telling me to flee from her. I do not like her mystery. I do not like what it does to my mind.

Late that night, we leave the restaurant. Little Collin's street is dark and quiet, the only light pouring dimly from the windows of the buildings that line the street's upper levels, throwing a roseate glow across Miss Malfoy's face every few steps.

I feel then that it is time to pull out the tactic I had kept as a last resort.

"Miss Malfoy, have you ever killed a man?" I asked blandly, as if we might be discussing the weather.

She stops in her tracks and, after a few paces, so do I. When I look at her, her expression is pure fire.

And the answer she gives almost flaws me.

"Yes." she responds, through gritted teeth.

I think it might possibly be the only honest thing she has said to me since we met.

"You have cast the killing curse?" I ask, my casual tone gone.

"Yes."

"The torture curse?"

"Yes."

"Imperius?"

She juts out her chin in challenge. "Yes."

"My oh my." I say slowly after a moment as a smile creeps up my face. Is it possible that I have met a woman as equally diabolical as me? "Aren't you just a perfect little actress?"

And now I will have the truth, whether she wants to give it to me or not. I raise my wand, still smiling.

"Legillimens." I croon softly.

I am so ready to enter her mind; I have no doubts as to whether or not I will achieve this. But, it seems I underestimate her. The block that I slam up against is so powerful that it causes me to stagger.

Tom Riddle does not stagger.

I am filled then, with rage. How _dare_ she deny me?! How dare she think that she is worthy to withhold the information that I want?!

I advance on her and push her forcefully against a wall, plunging us both into the shadow of a building. She does not make a sound, but her breath is coming out quickly, in ragged gasps, falling sweetly on my face. I can smell her defiance on the air.

"You _will_ tell me who you are!" I order, allowing that old magic I had honed at the orphanage to lace through my tone, compelling her to answer.

"Only if you ask nicely." she snarls.

And then, I am flying backwards through the air and my body crumples painfully onto the cobblestones some ten feet away from her. I had not even felt her move to retrieve her wand and it had not been until the very last moment that I felt it pressed into my stomach.

She saunters forwards to stand over me, her wand still trained in my direction, her face contorted in an animalistic scowl.

"You want to know who I am?" she growls. "I am Hermione Granger, mudblood, of Gryffindor house. I travelled through time to this place from the year 2002 to escape a reality that I no longer cared to live in. A reality in which many of the people I loved had perished in a horrific and bloody war that spanned decades. When it ended, I left England to find my muggle parents in Australia where I had sent them in secret so they would not be harmed, but when I found them, they were dead. There. You have the truth now. So leave me alone."

She does not sheath her wand as she walks away from me.

I can only stare after her dumbly. For some reason, I believe every word she's said.

* * *

A/N A fic request for mh21. Will be only 3 chapters in length.

As always, read and review!

xx

Desdemona


	2. Pergatorio

THE HIGHEST OF PRIESTS

TWO.

PERGATORIO

"_He fell so far there were no other means  
to lead him to salvation, except this:  
to let him see the people who were lost.  
For this I visited the gateway of  
the dead; to him who guided him above  
my prayers were offered even as I wept_."

* * *

I can feel her struggling against the bonds that contain her mind. Her body, of course, does not move, but her eyelids flicker ever so slightly, like insects circling a light bulb.

A piece of rather complicated magic keeps her in this state, a spell that is not well known, not easily cast, that contains the mind in something of an internal shell, robbing it of the ability to move out of its own confines and interact with the victim's surrounding environment. In essence, Hermione Granger's magic is caged, as is her consciousness, her psyche. She is entirely unaware of anything other than infinite blackness and her presence in it. And her body is in a state of stasis, it does not operate. She is frozen.

But why have I put her like this? Why is this woman lying on my bed, in my hotel room, unable to speak, feel or move?

Most alarmingly, the answer is that I do not know. I do not know why I brought her here, or why I have sat watching her for almost three days now, barely moving. I don't even understand why I stunned her as she walked away from me all those nights ago. I could have walked away, could have left the woman who'd travelled through time alone. Then I would not be in this rather uncomfortable and incomprehensible position.

I suppose I may have chosen this course of action because I need time to think, to understand those things she said to me. I need to decide what to do.

Surprisingly, the least troublesome part of her speech was her admittance to being a mudblood. More troubling is the fact that she actually used that particular word to describe herself thus.

And there was a war apparently, or will be a war. I am intrigued by this idea. Judging by the fact that she hid her muggle parents, it sounds like perhaps this war was one that I myself might have an interest in. The muggles were threatened. Wherever muggles are threatened, I want to be. Whenever I choose to release her from the bonds I have put in place, I will question her strictly about this.

And then there was the far greater, far more disturbing aspect to her speech. She had _travelled back in time_. How? How did she do this? Was she a prodigy? A great witch, mistress of invention? Did she create a device that would serve her thus?

Oh, the things I could change with such a form of magic. The Statute of Secrecy, Grindelwald's defeat, the birth of Albus Dumbledore even. Perhaps… perhaps even my mother's death. I do not yearn for any sort of familial relationship with such a weak hearted individual, obviously, but I have many questions. _Many _questions.

I find myself hungering for it, for this knowledge. I even stoop to going through Hermione's bag in an effort to find something that might lead me to it. But I find nothing, apart from several books from the future, that I devour instantly though they only serve to perplex me further. There are other things, the pouch that contains the gold, a few potions ingredients and some vials full of unidentifiable liquids. I do not open these; I am smarter than that, though I do hope that they are somehow associated with her ability to travel through time.

I am beginning to think I might have to unbind her mind now. These questions are too tantalising. Though honestly, I fear her. And my fear of her is even more frightening. I do not understand, even in the slightest, why this woman has me obsessed. I have been enraptured by many things in my life, consumed by certain trails of study or various projects. But never have I let my obsession extend to people. Never has a woman captured me like Hermione.

But I justify it, in the end. I put it down to the fact that, through her, I might not only be able to master death and power as I have already done, but also time. Something that had always been elusive and unpredictable.

I move to stand, lifting my wand and directing it at her slightly twitching face. I mutter the counter spell and her eyes open instantly, panicked and frightened.

She scrambles into a sitting position, her hand flying to her forehead, before she spots me and her frightened look is replaced by terror.

"What did you do to me?!" she cries hysterically.

"What I thought was necessary." I respond calmly, pouring water from a jug into a glass on the nightstand.

"And you thought locking me in some… some endless black prison was _necessary_?!" her eyes are wild, her hands visibly shaking.

"I did nothing to _you_. Only your mind." I hand her the glass, a peace offering if you will, in the hopes that it might calm her. Her panic is inconvenient.

She looks at the glass in my hand longingly before reaching forward to take it. I almost draw back again, thinking that perhaps I might be able to ransom the water for information. But something tells me this technique will not work. She is, after all, a Gryffindor. I am thinking that to do something like that would only incite her rage and cause her to become violent again. This, I worry about, even if I have confiscated her wand. There are so many things I have underestimated about Hermione already; I do not want to make the same mistake again.

She takes the glass and consumes the entire contents in one prolonged gulp.

"This is fucking ridiculous." she says after a moment, breathlessly as she swallows the last gulp of her beverage. "Only I could walk out of the madness that was my life and straight into the clutches of a man who kidnaps me. I should just end it now and get it over with. Clearly fate doesn't want me to live happily."

Do I feel guilty at this? Not in the slightest. But we appear to be getting closer to the information I want.

"How did you travel through time?" I ask, beginning my interrogation.

"Ah. So this is why I've been kidnapped." she nods in understanding.

"Answer the question. How did you do it?" my voice lowers menacingly.

She chuckles, looking unaffected. "Yeah. Like I'd tell you that."

"How did you travel through time?" I demand again, lacing my tone with a compulsion.

This time she laughs properly. "We've already established that doesn't work on me haven't we? And you can't enter my mind, so I'm thinking you might have to get a little more creative than that. Feel free to try the imperius curse if you think that'll help."

At this point, I am open to suggestions. She is taunting me, but I smarter than that. There is a possibility that she might be bluffing and there is a possibility that she may not. And there is only one way to find out.

I raise my wand. "Imperio." her eyes immediately lose their life and go blank. "Tell me how you travelled through time."

This time, she does not answer right away. Her face begins to crumple in concentration and after a moment she says firmly, "No."

And then the curse lifts. She's thrown it off. I'm impressed.

But my arsenal is not empty. If the situation demands ruthlessness, then that is what I will give her.

My wand rises yet again and I say calmly, "Crucio."

A look of blind panic and disbelief crosses her face for the briefest of moments before her body folds in on itself and back arches. I swiftly cast a silencing charm in order to keep our interrogation process quiet just in case she decides to scream.

I can see all the muscles in her body twitching, jolting, taut like a bow string. Her body writhes in a way that is almost beautiful.

I sit down again, beside the bed and watch her. Her eyes are wide and staring. The bed shakes with her violent convulsions. There is a part of me that wants to reach out and caress the muscles of her thighs so that I might feel for myself her skin jerk under my hands, to feel some physical embodiment of the pain I'm causing her.

After a few moments, I hear a splintering crack and my eyes are drawn to her face. She has opened her mouth too wide in her silent screams; put too much pressure on her tendons and bones. Her jaw has unhinged, dislocated.

I do not immediately react, though I know that I should. She might cause herself more damage if the strain is that much. But for some reason, I cannot bring myself to lower my wand. She's so perfect like this, more animal than human, not in any way consumed by fickle human emotions. The agony she expresses is something I can understand, something pure. Again, I want to touch her. But I want to take it further than the simple laying on of hands. I want her naked, pressed against me, seized by the violence of the torture curse. I want to feel her every muscle tear, her every bone break. I want to know what it does to the human body, really know.

As I watch her, and these thoughts drift lazily through my head, I feel a stir in my abdomen. It's primal. It scares me.

My wand lifts.

Her body flops back onto the bed with the sort of atrophy only torture can inspire. I stand and tower over her. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and owlish, tears slicing down her cheeks and onto my pillows. Her jaw hangs open sickeningly, hanging to the side. She cannot move it, but she must be able to feel the pain all too acutely.

With a swift wave of my wand and a stomach-turning click, her jaw is fixed. I need her to be able to speak. Next, I disperse the silencing charm and the room is instantly filled with her ragged sobs though she says nothing. Her body continues to shiver violently in the after effects of the spell.

I summon a tumbler and a bottle of firewhisky from the cupboard by the bed and resume my seat, watching her patiently as she stares around herself in fear. Perhaps she has learned to fear me now.

The firewhisky burns my throat. "How did you travel through time?" I rasp.

Her answer is not immediate; she is fighting against her defiance and her fear. I can feel it. With difficulty, she pushes herself into a sitting position to face me head on.

"A spell." she sobs fiercely after a moment, I can see her hatred poignant in her eyes. "A spell I created."

I smile. "Very good. I'm glad you're beginning to learn. Now, how did you create such a spell? Where did you pick up such knowledge?"

"I worked in the Department of Mysteries for a couple of years after I left Hogwarts. I was stationed in the Time room. It was my speciality. Well, that and mind control." she answers. I can only imagine the gruesome things she is imagining doing to me after the way I've treated her, after making her give me this information. The thought makes me smile.

"What does the spell involve?" I ask, taking a sip of my firewhisky.

"I won't tell you." she bites furiously, fire in her eyes.

"Crucio." I respond, lifting my wand again. A bubble of laughter echoes out of my throat as she grits her teeth and dips forward, her hands splayed out in front of her, fists in the bedclothes. Her body closes in on itself.

This time though, I do not prolong the curse. I only wish to give her another taste, just to let her know that the torture will continue if she does not give me the information I ask for.

I drop my wand.

I do not need to speak; her eyes immediately rise to mine. "You can torture me all you want, kill me, I don't care. There is no way I will tell you about my spell. It's _mine_. It's for me alone."

So I torture her again. Only for a moment. This time she screams. I love how it is dragged from her body, starting as a low groan and turning high pitched, agonised.

But I soon discover that she is not bluffing. After a few more short bursts of the cruciatus curse, blood drips down her chin from where she has bitten her tongue in her torment, her skin is red and weeping from where she has scratched it and a huge, ugly bruise has blossomed over the side of her face from the continued strain on her already damaged jaw. And still she says nothing. Still she refuses me.

I stand up and lean over the bed, my face inches from hers when I speak. "You do not know who I am, little girl. I will push you to the brink of madness, tear your limbs from your body and cause your eyes to turn to dust in their sockets. But I will keep you alive, even in the most rudimentary and diminished form, until you give me the information I seek."

Her eyes bore into mine with a fierceness that is inhuman. "Do it then." she snarls, "Fucking do it. I don't fear death and I don't fear pain. There is nothing you can take from me that I haven't already lost."

I do something then that shocks me. I have never done it before, not once in the entire expanse of my existence. I hit her, backhand her. So hard that I can feel the impact of her cheekbones cracking against my knuckles, leaving me as bruised as she will be.

And then, her reaction shocks me even more. She laughs for a moment, her hand moving up to cup her rapidly swelling cheek, then she hits me back. And she breaks my nose. I feel the hot blood spill out of my face and fall down into my hands.

I cannot believe it. I am so filled with rage that without thinking, my wand stabs into her ribs. Half of the curse is out of my mouth before her smugly satisfied expression stops me. "Avada…"

I shake my head and back away, casting a hasty spell to fix my nose. I resume my seat. She will not so easily defeat me.

When I look at her again, the look she gives me is… odd. Her eyes are narrowed, as if she is trying to figure something out in her mind. Something troubling. Slowly she asks, "Who are you?"

"I am Tom." I respond harshly, confused. Has she so easily forgotten my name?

"I know that." she says seriously, "But what's your last name? You never mentioned it."

"Why are you so eager to know?"

"Call it curiosity."

"I do not like to tell people my last name."

Her expression turns to barely concealed panic. Her hand flies to her forehead as her eyes stare blindly about the room.

"I need you to tell me your last name." she demands in a constricted voice.

I cannot imagine why the information might be important to her and I cannot muster the energy to fight her over it. Not when I need to be thinking of new and more creative ways to crack open her skull and feast on the information within…

"Riddle. My last name is Riddle."

She stares at me blankly for a moment before her face cracks into a demented grin and deranged laughter begins to spill from her mouth and echo around the room.

"Do you find my name amusing?" I snarl.

She is mad; I can see it in her eyes. I need not worry about breaking her mind now, it is already broken. She is unhinged. Her voice is crazed when she responds with, "Oh, yes. Yes I find it amusing. I know you Riddle! I _know _you! I know about the ring and the locket. I know about the Gaunts and Hephzibah Smith! I know about the Chamber of Secrets and the people you've killed! I know about the Horcruxes, my _lord_ _Voldemort_!"

The breath is gone from my lungs, "You… you dare?!" I stutter.

"Hah! Yes, I dare! You think that name would inspire more fear within me?! Oh, no, it only lets me know of what you _are_! I know now what I am fighting! _I_ _do not fear you_! You're already dead!"

The room spins. I cannot breath. The Horcruxes, the secret I have told no one about, that I have kept closer to my chest than any other. And _she _knows! Her maniacal laughter echoes through my bones, my blood, what remains of my soul.

"You know what the really ironic thing is, Riddle?" she says, suddenly serious. "This is time travel. And time is circular. You cannot change the future even if you try because it's already happened! Whatever lengths you'll take to insure the safety of your soul has already been torn apart, already been destroyed. And, really, if this is my last day on the planet, I'm happy to know that I have been the one to cause you that torment, the torment you'll suffer for the rest of your short life, knowing what will happen, trying everything to change it and knowing that there is nothing you can do. If you killed me now, I will die happy knowing I have damaged you like that. I've hit your heart."

She is right. I know she is right. It becomes more important now that I get that information out of her mind. It is the difference between my reign and my defeat. Ino longer want it, I _need _it.

She senses the change in me, I think, and sits up a little straighter. "Give me my wand." she says calmly.

All I do is look at her and shake my head slowly, anger pulsing through my veins like liquid fire.

"Give me my wand." she growls and again I shake my head.

Her movement then is quick, almost too fast for me to catch. Her hands dip under her robes and yank them up, exposing the pearly white flesh of her legs. From a sheath strapped to her inner thigh, she pulls a long, evil looking knife. A knife, if I am honest, worthy of me. And then, she is gone, pitching herself sideways off the bed and disappearing over the other side where I cannot see her.

I stand slowly, grinning at her childishness. As if she thinks she could defeat me with a knife when I have a wand. Which is the superior weapon I wonder?

When I round the corner of the bed, I am confused. She is not hiding under it or crouched beside it ready to pounce, no, she is propped up on her toes and fists, a foot of space hanging between her body and the floor. I can see the muscles of her back straining to maintain this odd position.

I almost laugh as I crouch down beside her, ready to inquire as to what exactly it is that she thinks she's doing. But the laughter stops in my throat. The knife's point is pressed into her breast, over her heart, propped up between her body and the wooden floor.

"I want my wand." she says, the pressure evident in her voice, "If you do not give it to me, I will drop onto this knife. It will pierce my heart and kill me and then how will you get your information? If you try to stun me, torture me or control my body in any way, the same thing will happen. Now. _Give me my wand_."

I hate this woman more than I have ever hated another living thing. I cannot think of any way to regain the upper hand in this situation, though my mind continues to offer useless suggestions that each end with the same result. Her death.

"You better be quick about it, I can't maintain this forever." she gasps, her voice cracking. I can see her arms shaking and the veins in her neck jumping with her heartbeat.

Reluctantly, I push my hand into the pocket of my robes. She presses threateningly down on the knife, her intention clear and I see the drops of blood beginning to bead down its blade.

I set her wand down on the floor beside her hand.

"Yours too." she adds, almost as an afterthought.

I have never been tempted to verbally abuse someone until this moment. But I know that her head will mean mine. I must obey her commands.

My wand joins hers on the floor.

"Now walk away. Over to the other side of the room."

I do as she asks, hating her, _loathing _her. And after a moment, she stands, a wet patch blossoming on her dark robes over her heart. She puts my own wand at me. And, to my confusion, she points her own to her temple. She closes her eyes for the briefest of moments and croons, "Alligavertis."

I do not know this spell, have never heard it before. What looks like a glowing crown of flame engulfs her skull for a moment and then fades quickly.

"I created that spell too." she tells me, lowering both wands, "It's a protective enchantment, to be used inside one's own mind containing any information one does not want others to have access too. The fun thing about it, you see, is it places a very fragile band of magic, not unlike that of the killing curse, around the brain. Now, if you try to break through my mental defences, no matter how weak they are from your incessant need to torture me, the intrusion will kill me. Instantly." a grin spreads across her bruised and bloody face. An evil grin.

I let out an animalistic howl of rage, taking up my bottle of firewhisky and throwing it against a nearby wall. It explodes on impact.

Hermione giggles and backs towards the bed, sliding up onto the covers, getting comfortable. "Now, most people in this situation would flee wouldn't they? I mean, no one wants to be locked in a room with Voldemort, certainly not when you're as angry as you are. But I'm not passing up this opportunity." she smiles winningly, the same smile I've tried to give her many times, "If you want your wand back, you're going to have to answer a few questions. I have to warn you, they may be a bit personal but… well… you know how this game goes if you don't answer them…"

Before today, I have never had the torture curse cast on me. No one has ever had the chance. But now, I feel that may change. I think then, of this war she spoke of, and I wonder how it was possible that she fought for the light, for the protectors of muggles. She would make a stunning Death Eater. Her ruthlessness is inspiring.

With repulsion, I resume my seat and she watches me the whole time, like a little kitten with razor sharp claws and needles for teeth watching a rat three times her size.

"What changed you?" I ask without thinking, shocked when the words leave my mouth, void of venom.

"What?" she scoffs, looking scandalised that I'd even spoken.

"What turned you into this hollow, remorseless shell of a human being? Have you always been this way?"

"No." she shakes her head, smiling, "No, the war broke me. There was a woman, dead now, who was a Death Eater. She was the sort of woman who tortured people until they were insane just for the fun of it. I know I'm like her, I get her now. I understand her."

"Who was she?"

She laughs coldly, "Aren't I supposed to be asking the questions?"

I wave my hand, inviting her to begin her own interrogations. I'm shocked at my complacence. Perhaps, I am just over eager to hold my wand again.

I wonder, as I take up the tumbler beside me that holds the remaining firewhisky, why I feel that same fluttering in my lower abdomen, why I am excited when I should want to wrap my fingers around Hermione Granger's pretty little neck and break it.


	3. Paradisio

THE HIGHEST OF PRIESTS

THREE.

PARADISIO

"_Indeed I see that in your intellect  
now shines the never-ending light; once seen,  
that light, alone and always, kindles love;  
and if a lesser thing allure your love,  
it is a vestige of that light which – though  
imperfectly – gleams through that lesser thing,"_

* * *

Her eyes are brown, a black ring circles the irises. She has thick eyelashes that sit comfortably on her cheeks whenever she looks down. Her hair is dark brown, curly and appears to be supple in her fingers while she plays with it, which she does often. There is a dip in her waist where her ribs end, it curves inward softly, a curve so pronounced that it is almost, _almost_, unnatural in appearance. Her breasts are large, they bounce when she laughs and heave when she breathes heavily. She has thin ankles and full thighs, her legs taper down into small feet from a round bottom. Her hands are bony, the knuckles and veins protrude and shift under her skin when she moves them. Her mouth is the most expressive part of her face, she forms her words differently whenever her mood changes.

She talks but I don't really hear her words anymore. She's a blank in my mind. I went from hating her, loathing her to the very core of my being, to feeling nothing. This blankness. I feel empty. Like I need to fuse it with something. I'm empty.

"Have you ever had sex?" she asks, the fiftieth question in the last hour alone. All her others were about my earlier life and I answered without hesitation, every time, I give her automated replies. I do not want her to torture me. Not when I feel so insane.

"I've always wondered," she says. Always wondered if I've had sex? Do I attempt to penetrate the meaning of that statement? Or do I leave it hang and answer her honestly? It seems an odd thing to always wonder about someone. But then, all her questions have been strange. Not how I would have gone about them. "How did you feel when you found out your mother had loved a muggle?" instead of "How did you find out?"

Always my emotions rather than my actions…

"Do you think you have a problem with your anger?"

My answer is no.

"Do you ever feel guilty about the things you've done?"

Again, no.

"Is there anyone you wish you hadn't killed?"

I tell her that some murders, of course, have proved inconvenient later on but regret is not the word I would use.

"Have you ever loved someone? Or liked someone even?"

… Strange. All of them. All about feelings and regret. Why? Why does she want to know? Why does she care enough to ask? Why do I care that she cares?

This question is the first of its nature, the first about action. And I'm scared by it. Why? Because I fear her. Always fear her now. I'm cringing every time she opens her mouth. My hands are shaking.

"No. I have never shared my bed with another," is my eventual reply. I won't elaborate. I mustn't. She knows too much.

"Why?" she asks. And now I must, or she'll hurt me. Mustn't let her hurt me.

What's more valuable? The information or my physical wellness? I don't know. I don't know anymore.

"Because I think to have sexual desires is impure."

She scoffs. "But you have them anyway, don't you?"

"I think to act on them is impure. It will distract me from my purpose," I answer, my voice unusually high and nervous. My stomach is churning. My back, usually straight, is bent inwards, my shoulders slumped. I tried to contain my shaking, twitching fingers in my fists and so my knuckles are hard and white.

Moments pass. She says nothing. She has not been so silent yet. Not in the four hours she has been interrogating me. I look up at her.

Her brow is furrowed, her lips a thin, hard line. Her eyes are moist I think, as they stare at me. Maybe. I don't know what this is. It's not an expression I recognise. I can attach no emotion to it.

"Are you alright?" she asks after some time, her voice soft.

I don't answer. I don't know how to answer.

"You're shaking," she says, "You're rocking backwards and forwards. What's wrong?"

There's something on my cheek. I can feel it sliding down from my eye towards my mouth. I lift my hand to touch it. My hand comes away wet. I stare at the wetness. I don't understand it.

"Are… are you _crying_?!" she asks then, dumbfounded, shocked.

Am I? I've never done that before.

She moves off the bed and approaches me. I get up and move away. I'm cringing. I don't want her close to me. But she keeps coming until I'm backed into a wall and she's inches away. Her eyes are narrowed, studying me like an open book.

"You're scared of me," she says. It is not a question.

"This… you… ask… I won't… can't… mudblood… understand… empty."

Why can't I speak? Her closeness is immobilising me, like she is using some magic to confuse my mind, to make my body small.

She's taking away my breath, leaving my lungs empty. "Stop this," I choke, my voice rasping and hard.

"Stop what?" she asks, her eyebrows bent inwards in that unidentifiable expression.

"Stop… what you are doing… stop… now," I try to make my words sound like commands but I have a feeling I may have failed.

"I'm not doing anything," she says in confusion, holding up her hands to show that they hold no wand, no instrument of torture. "Come and lie down on the bed," she reaches out a hand to guide me but I shrink away.

She backs away from me then, her hands still held up, "Look, I'm not touching you. Come on, lie down, Tom," she orders.

I don't move.

Then, she points her wand at me and I can see the threat she means to convey. "Lie down," she orders again, this time with a harsher tone.

My eyes do not leave her as I move towards the bed, my knees almost falling out from under my body, my feet stumbling. I sink onto the mattress and when my head hits the pillow, she falls out of my eye line, the shaking worsens. She appears above me.

"How do you feel?" she asks, wand still in hand. When I do not answer, she presses on, "Do you feel sick? Short of breath? Dizzy?"

"All," I manage to choke.

Then her hand lands on my chest, right over my heart and a sound falls from my mouth, a sound I have never made before though I have heard it many times from those I have tortured. It is a whimper.

"Your heart's beating a million miles an hour," she breathes. Her wand moves over my head, my chest, leaving faint, soothing trails of warmth that comfort me. I want to push her away. "This charm should relax your nerves and your muscles," she tells me, "You're having a panic attack."

I do not know what this is. I do not ask. I let her do what she does, I let her run this charm over my body, I let it relax me. When she finishes, she moves to the chair beside the bed that I had previously occupied and sits down.

I push myself up into a sitting position and watch her. She is not looking at me, her hand is rubbing at her chin, a frown creasing her features.

I do not speak. I will not be the one to break the silence.

Eventually, she sighs and her eyes return to my face. She looks shrewd but bewildered.

"I'm… confused," she says after some time, "Everyone always saw you as this… this sociopath that didn't feel anything other than your hunger for power. But you're so much more damaged than that aren't you? You… you remind me of Kreacher. You're hateful and crazed because no one's ever taken the time to actually be kind to you. How could they? You repel it. You make sure that people feel nothing but fear whenever they look at you. But how can you be frightening, emotionally numb, impervious to the impurities of humanity when you are capable of having panic attacks? That's not possible."

I don't know what she's talking about, but she's giving me this look of dawning comprehension that worries me.

"I wish… I wish there was something I could say to you… something that would make all these issues go away…" her voice is quiet, as if she is speaking more to herself than to me. "Then… maybe it would all be different…"

I feel beaten by her tone, beaten by the situation. There is almost a part of me that wants to sink into resignation. I am aware that my situation is entirely my own fault. If I had not allowed my own boredom to get the better of me all those days ago, had not hungered for knowledge of Hermione Granger, had not taken her as my prisoner and interrogated her, I would not be as I am now. Wandless, without hope, desperate, weakened. I am not even capable of seeing what it is that I fear. My instincts tell me that she will not kill me, I feel that she is a noble Gryffindor at heart. She will kill me only if I give her no other option. It is imperative that I do not do this. She must have plenty of options.

Unfortunately, though I do not think it necessary to fear for my life, I _do_ think it possible to fear for my physical safety. Hermione, it seems to me, is a vengeful kind of woman. I think that as I have already tortured her, she will not hesitate to torture me. And again, I do not want to be tortured. I have had not ever had an Unforgiveable curse cast on me. I aim to keep it that way.

"What do we do?" she asks suddenly, breaking me from my thoughts.

"About?" I respond, happy to find that I am once again capable of speech.

"This," she says, "Us. I kinda think I should give your wand back and leave, with the agreement that we'll never have to see each other again. But somehow… I don't think you'd honour that agreement. I don't think you'd let me go, given how much I know now."

"And how much _I_ do _not_." I say wryly.

She nods and gives a little snort, "Yes. And that," Hermione sighs, twirling my own wand between her finger tips, "So that brings me back to my original point. What do we do? I have the power here, but honestly, I don't really want it anymore. If anything, I'd just like to go and get on with the stunning clusterfuck that is my life."

"I'm not sure I follow your meaning. Are you asking for suggestions?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"Then I suggest you give me back my wand and tell me all I want to know about the spells you have created as well as this war that I am somehow involved in."

Hermione laughs, "And I will do neither. This is the issue."

I realise she has a point. She is acknowledging the dangerousness of our situation. And unfortunately, we _are_ both in danger. If she is to return my wand and I allow her to leave, she might use the knowledge she has gained against me which would mean I would have to find her and kill her. Can I trust her not to utilise her new found information? No. Can she trust me not to kill her? No. Another paradox.

"I see only one solution," I say after some time.

She gives me a level look. "And that is?"

"You must kill me," I am, of course, bluffing, but this is really the only way I can see her leaving this situation unharmed, or no more than she already has been anyway. Why I care that she stays out of my reach and away from harm is beyond me.

"No, no. I couldn't do that," she answers, waving me off dismissively, "It would change the timeline. And because timelines are paradoxes in and of themselves, the past I've already experienced and the future you have yet to would dictate that I would have tried and failed to kill you… Making the whole thing not even worth the effort."

"You are probably speaking to one of the only people who could follow that train of thought," I say wryly in response to her musings. She is right, of course, but I was hoping she would not have realised it. I was counting on the fact that she would fail to kill me. Unfortunately, Hermione Granger is far too intelligent for her own good.

Silence. Both of us are lost in contemplation, two exceptional minds trying to think of a solution to a paradox. After some time, my eyes leave the ceiling at which I had been staring for the better part of a quarter of an hour, to return to Hermione.

I catch her in the middle of something. Her face seems to be undergoing some form of process, something I can't quite describe. She's not looking at me, she's not moving and it almost seems as if she is not breathing either. It's as if all the lines and harsh textures of her skin suddenly melt away. She's come to some sort of realisation, some epiphany. I can see it like a rising sun in her wide eyes.

"You have come to your decision?" I say blithely.

"Yes…" her voice is breathless, her eyes unfocused. "Yes, I think I have."

"Well, what…?" I begin to ask, but my words fade into nothing as she suddenly leaps off the chair and lands on the bed beside me, the unfocused look on her face replaced by a sort of manic defiance.

I scramble up the bed, away from her but she just keeps coming, until her face is inches from mine, her wide brown eyes, boring into my own.

"What are you doing?" I growl.

"I don't know," she whispers, moving slightly closer, "I've never… Only once… After the war Ron was… I never got to… and now… You wouldn't understand."

I don't. It seems she is incapable of articulating sentences. Her face is too close.

And then her hands move very slowly onto my wrists. I look over her shoulder. Both wands are sitting on the chair she previously occupied. Her grip is strong. She is holding down my arms. Then her face moves closer and closer, until only millimetres of air lie between us. I don't move. I don't know why. I simply cannot make my limbs move.

Then her lips reach mine.

I have never been kissed before, of course, who would be game enough to try that? People do not touch me, they do not like to touch me. And yet, here she is, Hermione Granger, her lips are on mine and it's soft and light and making my heart beat a wild tattoo against my diaphragm.

After a moment, she pulls away and the look in her eyes is careful.

"Did you like that?" she asks in a whisper.

I mean to shake my head, but I don't. My chin moves up and down almost of its own accord. I'm nodding. Did I like it? Yes and no. My mind feels fogged in a way that has come upon me suddenly. Before I was myself, and now… I am drunk. I am most certainly drunk though not in the way that alcohol would make me so. I feel dizzy. My head is lazy, my eyes glued to hers, my stomach churning and there is a discomfort in my nether regions that I do not recognise.

"I liked it," she says softly, her voice low, and the tone makes my manhood twitch just a little bit. _There _is the discomfort. A yearning kind of discomfort. I am having… strange urges. Something primitive is happening inside my body. I cannot help imagining something warm, something wet and tight, wrapped around my cock. I do not know what.

I have never had thoughts like this. There have been shadows, vague imagery that I have pushed to the darkest recesses of my mind, of course, but never like this. Never so lucid.

"Touch me," she says, almost like a plea, almost as if she's begging.

"You are holding down my hands," I respond, my voice slightly cracked.

"If I let you go, promise you won't push me away," she whispers.

I think about this for a moment. I had not considered pushing her away until she suggested it and now, I do not know. There is a small part of my mind that is warring against the rest, urging me to throw her off, to make a grab for the wands, to kill her while I can. But of course, my body is in control in this moment and it does not want her dead.

After a long moment, I say, "I will not."

She releases my hands, but they remain on the bed.

"Touch me," she says again.

"Where?" I rasp.

"Anywhere."

My hands raise. They land in her hair, her eyes close and my fingers tips rake through the smooth, curly mass. Her scent, strange in my head, engulfs me when her hair is stirred. My thumbs move over her closed eyes, across her cheeks, feeling the contours of her face.

I have never touched someone like this before. No one has ever been this close.

Her face moves forward again, an invitation, and I take it. I want to kiss her again, have wanted it since she pulled away the first time. And so I do, an act that is so wildly unlike me it stuns me. I can feel that it stuns her too.

More than anything though, I am shocked when her mouth opens and she sucks my lower lips in between her teeth. The fire in my belly rages into a blaze when she bites down.

Another sound I have never made before falls out of my mouth and into hers. I moan. She echoes it.

She begins to squirm a little then, her hips wriggling into my lap as she takes her weight off her hands. She straddles me as she would a horse, freeing up her hands to move on me, to flutter over my skin.

I realise then that I am… I am being _embraced_. And I, in turn, am _embracing_.

This flaws me, internally, but I do not stop. I feel so out of control now, that I do not think I could stop even if I wanted to, even if she asked it of me.

Her pelvis moves, pushing up against me, mounting a deep seated pressure in my stomach, before releasing, and with each release she makes a sound, something beyond my understanding and yet, I'm resonating it. The noises we are making are one in the same, my smooth baritone with her vibrato, like a song. But it's animal.

"I want… I want…" she says, between breaths, "I want you to fuck me. And I want you to be violent."

"I don't… understand…" I pant in response.

And suddenly, she pulls back from my face, leaving my lips cold and abandoned, and she hits me. It is not hard enough to really sting or to draw blood, but it snaps me from the fog clouding my mind.

"I said," she growls, "I want you to _fuck _me, and I want you to be violent!"

Fire is all I can see. And the only word I understand in her demand is _violent_. I feel as if I might be able to comply with this request; there has, after all, been a sort of violence lying in wait ever since she touched me, the sort which I have only ever released on those I meant to murder. To bring it into this situation…

"I know what you are, Voldemort," she says lowly, shocking me again with the use of my preferred name, "I know what your appetites are, I know what you'll like. I _know _what you're capable of. And I'm ready for it. If you kill me, so be it," she squares her shoulders and juts out her chin, "I'm ready."

I give in. I feel my mind quite literally fall through the cracks in my soul, through those hollow, empty spaces, and into something… something else. Something far darker than murder, than torture.

I calmly put my hand on the centre of her chest, stare into her eyes for a moment, before slamming her backwards onto the bed. Her head cracks against the headboard. But I pay no mind to that.

My hands are in her robes and I feel as if I have grown claws, the fabric tears so easily under my hands. There must be magic at work in me because they almost dissolve under my skin.

I rip, I tear, I shred, until she wears nothing, until she is entirely bare before me. And even then, I do not stop. I slash at my own clothes with the same ruthless violence I would inflict on a room full of disobedient Death Eaters.

It is strange, these feelings, all so familiar, all so normal. Instead of blood on my hands, as I am so used to, there is another liquid coating my skin as I kneel between her spread legs. And it is hers. As I push my fingers inside of her, not knowing where the knowledge to do this has come from, it saturates me.

Her body bucks, as if it is being subjected to the cruciatus curse, but this time, she screams far sooner and her screams are so much sweeter. But I want the screams to be pain and pleasure, I want that peak. I want to hear both.

I bite her. I bite her inner thigh, her breasts, her nipples, her neck, until her body is peppered with bruises. And all through it, though her screams are exactly what I was yearning for, she smiles, she laughs. It taunts me.

How far can I push her before she begs for me to cease?

My eyes rake the room, my hands grabbing fistfuls of her malleable flesh and I find the knife she had threatened to impale herself upon sitting on the night stand. I seize it.

When I turn back, however, her hips buck again, but this time she draws herself up on her heels, and pushes herself onto me.

It is not the knife that impales her then.

The weapon falls from my hand and there is silence.

I cannot move. I am sitting on my knees, her legs snaking around my hips, clamping with a vice like grip, and my muscles have frozen.

She laughs again.

The warm. The wet. It's so _tight_.

This is what I had been yearning for. _This _feeling.

I can feel… I can feel… _Her _muscles, pushing and pulling, clamping around me. I can see the exact point that I disappear inside her. And it is at this point that I stare.

Instinct, nothing but instinct, tells me to move, tells me to thrust. And thrust I do. In. Out. It's smooth, slow at first. I'm testing this new ground, this untapped resource of power beyond my imagination. I had never thought anything could be more meaningful, more intense than the feeling of taking another's life, of securing their agony with nothing more than the tip of my wand. Until _this_.

There is a thin, purple scar trailing from her right collar bone to her left hip I notice. I put the knife against her left collarbone. I drag it down to her right hip.

_That_ scream, is all pain. I love it.

My thrusts become harder, faster and my face descends to hover over her body. My tongue runs up the bloody wound I have just inflicted on her. The taste is metallic and red and succulent, all full of life. I'm thrusting harder again, so hard I can feel her bones jarring under my hands.

Well, she asked for violent. She said she knew what I was capable of.

I can feel something, something deep and resounding building in my body. I don't know what it is. It feels like an oncoming storm, like the heart of the fire. I'm moving towards it. It's bright light, its euphoria. I'm nearly there, I can almost taste it, almost reach out and touch it…

Then I feel something poke into my chest, my thrusts do not slow. I look down to see Hermione's face, all contorted in… in anger perhaps, or lust, or pain, and then I see her wand. _My thrusts do not slow_.

One muttered word.

"Crucio."

The flesh of her legs, clutched in my hands, tears under my fingers. The blood gushes over both of us, followed by my seed, and her climax.

And I fall into… into something bottomless, profound, subterranean. I touch the very core of the earth. I touch its foundations. Pain worse than anything I could have imagined. Pleasure more paramount, more monumental than anything that could possibly be of this world.

I feel the weight of the dirt and the rock and the oceans on my back, it cracks my spine with an audible snap. The sky rips apart in a blinding white light.

And then it's gone, the pain, and I'm left with the shadow of it and the bliss that is the afterglow.

Hermione is still there, her legs wrapped around me. She's staring up at me, deep into my broken soul.

Slowly, she disentangles herself, but I remain sitting, slumped on my knees. I feel as if I have forgotten how to breathe.

"Your bones are broken," she says softly, her wand already sliding over her mangled legs and the gash on her chest. The bed is soaked with blood and me and her.

I'm weeping. It seems I could not hold the water in my eyes even if I'd tried. It is intent to leak down my face, great, heavy droplets to fall and mingle with the blood and seed.

I am beginning to feel the pain now, still a shadow to the torture curse, but there nonetheless and becoming unbearable. She sits up, wincing slightly, and moves her wand over me. It lingers on my skull and one pain disappears, it lingers on my left leg, my collarbone, my lower back and the fingers of my hands, mending all the way, knitting the bones back together until all the pain is gone.

And I am just left with the afterglow.

I slump back on the bed, my body and muscles singing with everything heavenly, everything blissful. I am thinking… contemplating…

If I could have that, if I could have what she has given me, if it were mine always, I would not care so much about my purpose. What do I care for a broken world when I could be so entirely whole? I could… I could…

But she's standing up. I watch as she transfigures a pillow into a dress when she discovers that her robes are beyond magical repair. Her body is soon shielded from my eyes. I hate it.

"Thank you, Tom," she says quietly.

I cannot reply. I cannot begin to express…

"Hermione," is all I can say, and even then, it is rough, my voice grating on my throat.

She walks towards the chair and picks up my wand, turning it over in her fingers. After a moment, she tosses it casually on to the bed beside me and moves to pick up her knife.

"You…" I rasp, "You are not… not leaving?"

It's a half hearted question, I do not really believe it, but I would like the reassurance. I want to hear her say she will always be there, that I will always have her by my side.

She pauses, her fingers running across the blade of the knife lightly. Then, to my shock and surprise, she nods.

"I must. This isn't my life. I… I should never have left really."

I drag myself into a sitting position. "But… no! I forbid it!"

"You can't forbid me anything, Tom," she says quietly, "I don't want to end up a shadow of a person. I have to leave."

"You have nowhere to go!" I growl, uncomprehending. How could she do this? After what she took from me?

She smiles slightly, sadly, and I'm not repulsed by it.

"Then that's where I'll be, if you ever want to find me. Nowhere."

She raises her wand, pointing it at me, at my face, at the despair written on my features.

"I'm sorry," she says, "Obliviate."

* * *

Years later, when I have never heard the name of Hermione Granger, when I have spent many long, long years dedicating myself to my purpose, to the cleansing of the human race, I meet a woman. And this woman reminds me of someone I once met, someone I cannot place. Her name is Bellatrix Lestrange. I keep her close to me, because I feel as if I must, because it is instinct. But I cannot touch her. This would be wrong. It would be… heresy. Sacrilege. I do not know why.

But in death… in death, I remember.

_Try for some remorse, Tom._

His words… the last I heard.

In death, I have remorse. But I am whole again, with her, she who looks exactly the same as she did the day she left me.

With Hermione.

* * *

_End._

* * *

A/N Sorry for the wait everyone! I went away for a bit.

Again, this was a request done for mh21 and I've loved every moment of writing it! Getting into Tom Riddle's character was... interesting. I think I'll have to thank my ego for all his arrogance haha.

If anyone has a request, feel free to email me (my email is on my profile) or send me a message on !

xx

Desdemona


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